Informal Survey about Tokens of the Twelve and Quest Repetition

[lordnelson1001]

Amidst the recent changes and discussion around quest repetition, I noticed that the playerbase seems to include some widely different feelings about an area of gameplay that may involve grind, namely gathering Tokens of the Twelve.

These range from the pained (especially from those leveling first-life toons/alts) to the cynical (you're supposed to just buy a heart, sucker) to the happily above the fray, so---
I wanted to learn more about what other people do and how they feel about it!

How do you usually get your Tokens for heroic reincarnation?


Run most of the quests that drop fragments
Repeat a few fragment-dropping quests over and over
Repeat Devil Assault only
Accumulated VIP points used to purchase Heart in store
Purchased points used to buy Heart in store


If you earn Token fragments/Tokens through quests, which are true?

Have regular guild mates/static party/buddies who pass fragments/Tokens, making process short
Consistently can find PUGs where players share fragments/tokens, making process short
Reserve of Tokens built up over multiple lives, takes care of itself by now
Solo, and run every TT-giving quest multiple times per life to reincarnate
Solo, repeat DA till eyes bleed



Finally, in your ideal version of the game, what changes (if any) would help keep heroic reincarnation feeling BOTH like an achievement/earned and part of fun, engaging gameplay?

[Quikster]

Can't say I have run DA but maybe once in the last three years. I usually do quests that drop tokens at least once per life, so rarely am I farming them. Occasionally I have farmed a few out. Maybe once I needed to farm all 20. This is with 4 or so alts able to run epic content. Currently 1 is stuck at 24 or so, another running a quick ETR at about 27, and two at cap. One of those capped can easily solo all token drops on EE. The other would need a group.

When I do farm, I usually run through DQ flagging quests, VON flagging on EE, until I get the tokens needed. I do have guildies that occasionally would come to pass, but I have done this more for others than myself. I also usually pass to PUGs when they ask as I don't mind running those quests when I need tokens.

[Emerge2012]

One of the most efficient ways to gather tokens is by running Epic Cannith Challenges at max challenge level with a group. Even being new to the whole thing and knowing nothing a group of 2-3 can easily pull 2 tokens every 15 minutes running Epic Disruptor on the Kobold Island. Get good at the pathing and when to place what and where, especially with more players, you can nab closer to 5 every 15 minutes.

Same thing with Buying Time in the Palace. Much more solo friendly but need to be able to run torches like a pro which really requires a toon with Haste for the kobolds and Ddoor for yourself and kobolds when you pick up teleporters. Bards (tier 5 warchanter and enough in swash for speed) are perfect for basically all challenges due to the run speed and use of mentioned spells.

The problem with doing this is you need a character to be EXACTLY level 21. Level 20 can't get into the epic challenges and every level over 21 results in less mats. I'm one of those people that have had dedicated lvl 15 and 21 challenge farmers for years. The heroic and epic spellpower gears are still by far the best in the game for their item level so worth it on that front. Both challenge farmers are best used as iconics anyways so the level 15 is basically finished and ready to rock immediately but the lvl 21 variation will obviously need to be leveled and geared. But this is stupid fast on that first life noob toon anyways. PDK 18bard/1ftr/1fvs with the lvl 15 being 13/1/1. 18bard/2ftr works as well also but I'd prefer the extra tactics DC from FvS in case you end up running something normal just in case.

[lordnelson1001]

This is with 4 or so alts able to run epic content

Oh, I forgot, having alts who linger in epic is an option as well! That's another scenario that makes TT gathering less painful, since the toon who's AT twenty can be passed tokens by a character running the quests at a higher level!

Solo, but way less painful.

Also thanks to you and all who group and help others with the tokens!!

[lordnelson1001]

One of the most efficient ways to gather tokens is by running Epic Cannith Challenges at max challenge level with a group. Even being new to the whole thing and knowing nothing a group of 2-3 can easily pull 2 tokens every 15 minutes running Epic Disruptor on the Kobold Island. Get good at the pathing and when to place what and where, especially with more players, you can nab closer to 5 every 15 minutes.

Epic Cannith Challenges! That's a good one, forgot to ask how many do it this way!



Bards (tier 5 warchanter and enough in swash for speed) are perfect for basically all challenges due to the run speed and use of mentioned spells. SNIP

The problem with doing this is you need a character to be EXACTLY 21.

I think you just gave me a purpose to level up my gimped teen-level fighter bard . . .

[Fauxknight]

We generally make sure to hit a few token quests while leveling and continue to run Spies EE (1.5 tokens) as a daily all the way up. I also have one character running Iconic TRs, which don't require any TTs for the TR but you can still run through all the TT quests and save up.

[Emerge2012]

I think you just gave me a purpose to level up my gimped teen-level fighter bard . . .
Yeep, you can force the kobolds to gather by taking away a path torch or two, hit them with an extended Haste, and watch them fly. Kobolds will also take a Ddoor so can easily drop that strategically when you pick up teleporters to move them. If you end up doing this just remember that barrels are the cheapest and most effective way of gathering more crystals.

[SpartanKiller13]

I just start all Dailies runs with EE LoD (which guarantees a token), and by often including token quests into my chain I find I have plenty by the time I hit level 30. That said, I don't TR at 20 (always at least from 30) so YMMV.

I used to grind DA every time I saw a LFM, but these days I mostly pass tokens when I join.

I think Token farming is mainly an issue for people who are TRing at 20, and those who want to obtain a bunch of augments (which also cost 20 apiece lol).

[Cantor]

If you are going to 30, you'd be crazy to farm DA instead of fitting in lots of token quests.
I only do any DA farming when I'm TRing at 20. It's only efficient if you are multiboxxing or passing anyway, it's a long quest that cant be sped up.

[Thrudh]

I always go all the way to 30, so I can get an epic TR AND heroic/racial TR...

So I just play the quests that drop tokens normally, and usually get the full 20... If I'm short, I'll do a few Bargain of Blood to get my last remaining tokens.

I have never grinded DA, and I have never asked anyone for their tokens.

I have bought a heart now and then back in the old days, but not for a long time....

If you're trying to hit 20, and turn right around and racial TR, it is indeed more difficult. Bargain of Blood on elite at 30 is trivial... Bargain of Blood on elite at 20 is a lot harder.

I would suggest going to 30 and getting an epic past-life at the same time you're getting a heroic/racial PL (unless you have all the epic PLs, of course). The Epic PLs work in heroic and are quite powerful.

[Aelonwy]

I usually run all the quests that can drop Tokens once. I rarely get to do challenges, I'm not a good enough player to solo them, hubby hates them and son makes them more difficult. I never get enough from one run through all Token quests but I also mostly run EH not EE, so I repeat the ones I know well and enjoy the most. But I don't usually repeat them back to back either. I repeat as I'm leveling if I find myself 50-100k short (of a level) then I run through some of my favorite token quests getting both XP and Tokens.

Recently, some one had the nerve to say running my favorite token quests for the combo of XP+ tokens was "chasing some xp/min meta". And here I'd always thought it was my one and only effort at being grind-efficient.

[CSQ]

I would typically do DA (not so much now that the experience changes are in, since it's basically wasting experience potions now) once a day to get some tokens while in epic. The difference is that now I'd be wasting about 20 minutes of potion time by the time I did it more than, say, 5 times in a life with the new optional ransack. DA doesn't pay good experience, and now it pays absolute garbage. So, I'll probably go back to just running random quests for tokens (which would be fine if newer quests actually dropped tokens, but even WPM quests in the Twelve don't, because SSG hates us being able to TR for free I guess).

So, yeah, I'm a bit bitter about the fact that Tokens of the Twelve are locked to old content and now there's a limit on how many times we can run for experience *and* tokens. The whole, "Tokens don't drop in the FR because of lore reasons" thing only works if tokens drop consistently elsewhere, right now it's "Tokens only drop in old content because we hate F2P and want people to have to whale in order to not just grind forever."

I don't want to make it sound like I hate SSG. I love the new content, I've been really liking most of the recent changes, but Tokens of the Twelve need to either be retired and just shifted into comms/heart seeds or actually reliably dropped across a reasonable selection of quests so we don't have to run the same content past optional ransack in order to TR expediently. There are 31 quests in DDO which drop tokens, and 6 of those (numbers might be off on both counts, I'm not entirely sure about numbers because my brain is still warming up) are raids or preraids (7 if you count ADQ) that require flagging. Now, on elite, you'll get the tokens you need with perhaps some room for wiggle if you get bad RNG for mob drops and end chest rewards. However, on lower difficulties, which reward fewer tokens, the only really great way to get tokens is Devil Assault. Now, if you're a freebie, you don't have access to DA, epic destinies, and most of those quests. Even if you've built up a decent selection of content and you have epic destinies, if you don't have a good build you may struggle in EE/ER. Limiting the quests means that you, by design, have to grind the same quests.

So, basically, with the new experience changes to optional objectives having a permanent ransack down to 0%, unless you have a raid group that can snag tokens from the raids, you're probably going to have to farm some. If you're good and on a good build, then you can pretty easily get that before losing optional ransacks, you can do elites and get the tokens, but heaven help you if you're on a bad build, a returning player without all the sweet loot, or don't have/want to run the quests that drop tokens because they're an arbitrary selection. For crying out loud, not a single quest since Update 13 (!!!) drops tokens, even ones which take place in Stormreach and have no ostensible reason not to drop tokens.

I try not to be angry with DDO or the devs unless it's well deserved. I love playing DDO and don't mind farming from time to time, especially if I can get experience and farm loot simultaneously, but with the new content that's been added since the Token system was last touched, the token system has gotten even more prohibitive for casual/on-again-off-again/limited time per day players. It's been obsolete since, well, years ago, and it hasn't been touched or improved. Even just tweaking the number of tokens required for a heart down from 20 to 10 would make it much less odious, and let people feel like they can run more diverse content without having to worry about getting tokens to TR after doing an Epic Life (for example). I believe the system is garbage right now because instead of running fun content like WPM or RL or Sharn for epic, I run the same ten quests to get tokens and fragments or open up the wallet and just pay for it, which is not really endearing me to DDO.

TL;DR: Tokens need to be scrapped, drop more universally, or have a lower token to heart conversion rate to remain sustainable with contemporary DDO. As is, it's just a BS-y paywall that frustrates players.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Amidst the recent changes and discussion around quest repetition, I noticed that the playerbase seems to include some widely different feelings about an area of gameplay that may involve grind, namely gathering Tokens of the Twelve.

These range from the pained (especially from those leveling first-life toons/alts) to the cynical (you're supposed to just buy a heart, sucker) to the happily above the fray, so---
I wanted to learn more about what other people do and how they feel about it!

How do you usually get your Tokens for heroic reincarnation?


Run most of the quests that drop fragments
Repeat a few fragment-dropping quests over and over
Repeat Devil Assault only
Accumulated VIP points used to purchase Heart in store
Purchased points used to buy Heart in store


If you earn Token fragments/Tokens through quests, which are true?

Have regular guild mates/static party/buddies who pass fragments/Tokens, making process short
Consistently can find PUGs where players share fragments/tokens, making process short
Reserve of Tokens built up over multiple lives, takes care of itself by now
Solo, and run every TT-giving quest multiple times per life to reincarnate
Solo, repeat DA till eyes bleed



Finally, in your ideal version of the game, what changes (if any) would help keep heroic reincarnation feeling BOTH like an achievement/earned and part of fun, engaging gameplay?


4 box DA on norm with 2 melee hires, so that I can semi AFK (the melees will get the archers).

have bard spellsinger on alt account built just for this, with improved augment summon sustaining song and the temp hp from warchanter. pass haste and rage every now and then.

someone to pass death ward is a plus for the 4th wave

have everyone equip as many guard items as they can

pass tokens to main account, 7 or 8 tokens in 25-30 minutes


caveat: getting a ftp account to 20 is a PITA, but you will earn enough TP to buy DA in the process

[lordnelson1001]

I usually run all the quests that can drop Tokens once. [snip]. I never get enough from one run through all Token quests but I also mostly run EH not EE, so I repeat the ones I know well and enjoy the most. But I don't usually repeat them back to back either. I repeat as I'm leveling if I find myself 50-100k short (of a level) then I run through some of my favorite token quests getting both XP and Tokens.

That sounds a lot more pleasant and integrated than just repeating back to back, honestly.


Recently, some one had the nerve to say running my favorite token quests for the combo of XP+ tokens was "chasing some xp/min meta". And here I'd always thought it was my one and only effort at being grind-efficient.

Well I hope they step in Kobold ****.

[Aelonwy]

Forgot to answer the question of what if anything I would like changed... I would like more epic Eberron quests to drop Tokens of the Twelve, for consistency if nothing else. I have never once bought a true TR heart, although I have bought a +x level heart to repair a bad build (a couple of times). Considering how pervasive the TR mechanic in the game has gone - nearly 150 lives now - there isn't a snowball's chance in Baator I would spend ~1500 pts for something that's used so repeatedly and used up each time.

[hp1055cm]

When I go Epic I go to cap, ETR 2-3X and my goal is to collect 120 tokens so I can TR at 20 frequently.
I run every quest, including Raids, at least once on Elite (or higher) per ETR; Sands especially whenever I see a LFm cause it drops 2 tokens on EE.
I tell people I am collecting tokens when running Eberron quests; in a polite way. Often generous people will pass them to me.

I used to farm Time is Money which works pretty well; I still run it a little, but I'm burned out on it so just in moderation these days.
DA is not my thing so I may only run it once or twice.
I have never purchased a Heart to do a TR, ETR or ITR.

[lordnelson1001]

So, yeah, I'm a bit bitter about the fact that Tokens of the Twelve are locked to old content and now there's a limit on how many times we can run for experience *and* tokens. The whole, "Tokens don't drop in the FR because of lore reasons" thing only works if tokens drop consistently elsewhere"

I think I could live more happily with the system if they dropped consistently by level, eg, across all lvl 20 - 23 quests, or at least across the full "getting to Eveningstar /saving Eveningstar" stories. It's nerdy of me, but it super annoys me to think of the limits as a part of "lore" when Lords of Dust chain drops them and Menace of the Underdark arc doesn't even though one follows directly on the other. I mean, make it by level (more sensible) or make it by storyline but be consistent!


There are 31 quests in DDO which drop tokens, and 6 of those (numbers might be off on both counts, I'm not entirely sure about numbers because my brain is still warming up) are raids or preraids (7 if you count ADQ) that require flagging.

You know what, I forgot to even ask about the raids--and zero folks have mentioned getting their tokens that way. For newbs/alts trying for a first heroic TR or so, epic raids are kinda outta reach, and for the experienced, I would imagine they don't go to the effort of the raids for tokens, I'd guess!

[LucidLTS]

Amidst the recent changes and discussion around quest repetition, I noticed that the playerbase seems to include some widely different feelings about an area of gameplay that may involve grind, namely gathering Tokens of the Twelve.

These range from the pained (especially from those leveling first-life toons/alts) to the cynical (you're supposed to just buy a heart, sucker) to the happily above the fray, so---
I wanted to learn more about what other people do and how they feel about it!

How do you usually get your Tokens for heroic reincarnation?


Run most of the quests that drop fragments
Repeat a few fragment-dropping quests over and over
Repeat Devil Assault only
Accumulated VIP points used to purchase Heart in store
Purchased points used to buy Heart in store


If you earn Token fragments/Tokens through quests, which are true?

Have regular guild mates/static party/buddies who pass fragments/Tokens, making process short
Consistently can find PUGs where players share fragments/tokens, making process short
Reserve of Tokens built up over multiple lives, takes care of itself by now
Solo, and run every TT-giving quest multiple times per life to reincarnate
Solo, repeat DA till eyes bleed



Finally, in your ideal version of the game, what changes (if any) would help keep heroic reincarnation feeling BOTH like an achievement/earned and part of fun, engaging gameplay?
I have a couple hundred tokens of the 12 so I won't have to worry about this for a very long time, but I used to get them by running DA with my wife and maybe my daughter or another guild mate once or twice a week.

It was a great way to blow off steam after a bad day at work - mix a couple of drinks, pop dinner in the oven, and kill a few hundred devils while it cooked. We'd often open up free slots to puggers and pass them our tokens if they needed them, we had fun and filled out destinies that weren't viable in serious questing.

I can't bring myself to run DA anymore, seeing the now pathetic XP just makes me sad. So I'm not opening slots to puggers, and certainly not passing any tokens except maybe to immediate family members. And if I do run DA to help a family member, it's with a feeling of resentment towards SSG the entire time - telling me how to have my fun? Go lick paint.

We still have blow off steam battles, but they aren't in DDO anymore.

So did this change help variety, are you guys seeing a lot more quests in LFMs?

[Xgya]

Did the math. Running an heroic life nets me about 750 DDO points.

I buy a single heart every 3 lives, so that saves me a ton of time, but still lets me accumulate a few tokens.

Can't be bothered to learn challenges. Probably should, but since I TR at 20, learning how to farm something at 21 doesn't seem that intuitive to me.

Other than that, I farm tokens in DA (only one alt account, but a ton of friendly guildies that can lend me one), farm the LoD chain, do the Deneith chain, do the Kundarak chain, The Snitch and Partycrashers.

I'll do most of the quests solo, but I'll get some PUGs rolling, and ever so often I'll manage to have a few people pass tokens, shortening the grind by that many runs.

I've had it with the devs' original response of "no tokens outside Eberron because lore". It NEVER was because of lore. Ever.
There are MANY, MANY quests in Eberron that don't drop tokens.
Even at the time a dev said this, Gianthold still wasn't dropping tokens.
Three-Barrel Cove got Epic-ified? Sorry, no tokens.
Fashion Madness, by Yaulthoon yours truly? That's not in Eberron, everyone knows Xoriat is something linked to Faerun by now!
Epic Orchard? Why would an undead-themed quest have any tokens? (*psst! Shoo Black Loch! Can't talk to you right now!*)
Archon's chain? That's on Shavarath, totally not Eberron-related!
I'll accept that the Slave Lords warp you to another place (even though the story in DDO says we're there because they own a piece of Eberron-related artifact)
However, the Rage chain? "Night Falls on Stormreach"? That's probably not on Eberron, right? Where was Stormreach again?
This whole new Sharn thing? Yeah, that's not a token-friendly place, sorry.

Sorry for the rant, that was a long time coming.

[Yamani]

If I ever needed to farm tokens quickly to TR I would ask a few friends to come help me do Bargain of Blood runs and get it done in a few minutes.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I never replay quests except for favour. I have never started item grinding ...
There's one exception of this rule, but that's casual, too : Necropolis Scarabs. Especially when i was more active several years ago I did several runs through this with my guild, and only last month or the month before that I have turned saved scarabs into something ...

As a story player, i don't even see any sense in repeating the same quest over and over again ... Except for Favour.

[erethizon]

When I started TRing the only way to get tokens was the level 20 epic quests (back when the cap was 20) that were way too difficult for a first life player to do (these were end game quests for end game players) or Cannith Challenges. I farmed Cannith Challenges (which are still an overlooked way to get tokens if you can find even one other person willing to play with you) for my first 200 to 300 tokens and filled out many of my destinies (when they came out) with the experience I got from these as well. Having them raise the required level to enter from 20 to 21 is definitely a problem but I was done with my token farming by then.

These days I get extra tokens (I currently have over 700) by simply running each quest once on R1. This gives me more than 20 tokens per life. I do this exclusively in PUG’s using the LFM. Most of the time I am the leader of the group though sometimes I join the groups of others.

I don’t think the current system is really a problem (running each quest once in a group does work just fine to get you 20 or more tokens), but I also wouldn’t be against their adding more. I would not mind seeing tokens in all the quests along with a wider range of token rewards, but then again, they may as well just get rid of tokens and use the comms we get for epic quests instead. We already get an epic currency in every quest so they could just have us use comms for TRing and all the other things tokens get us as well (though unless they give us more comms than we do now that would result in our getting less rewards than currently because we currently get both tokens and comms from token quests).

I see real benefit in having a single currency that is used for all things and drops in all quests (whether it be tokens, comms, of threads of fate).

[gnarledmaw]

...feelings...How...If...what changes...?

Generally happily above the fray. For the most part I repeat Devils Assault only but have used all of the other methods at least once. I tend to work weird shifts so when I do run DA its a combination depending on the days I have available between Consistently can find PUGs where players share fragments/tokens and Solo, repeat DA till eyes bleed. If I were to make a change I would like to increase the rate of speed at which the mobs enter to more of a constant flow but still leave time between the bosses and the beginning of the next phase in DA and I would like to see more whole tokens in other quests but as I suggested earlier, I don't really care one way or the other as long as there is a reasonable method in game.

[erethizon]

You know what, I forgot to even ask about the raids--and zero folks have mentioned getting their tokens that way. For newbs/alts trying for a first heroic TR or so, epic raids are kinda outta reach, and for the experienced, I would imagine they don't go to the effort of the raids for tokens, I'd guess!

The raids that drop tokens are super easy by today's standards so any character, no matter how weak, can join one of them and will do just fine because the rest of the party will be able to handle the heavy lifting. I didn't mention raids separately because only pre-raids (like ADQ, which is more of a quest, and Von 5) drop regular tokens. Raids otherwise drop Greater Tokens of the Twelve and while you can convert them to regular tokens to the twelve I would never do so. I use Greater Tokens for making Master's Gift augments (have about 15 so far). Greater tokens are a lot more work to obtain so I would just get tokens in other quests. That said, hopping into a Von 5 and asking for tokens at the end always results in a ton of people passing them. I've never asked anyone to pass a regular token of the twelve myself, but I see it a lot and people definitely do pass them (especially in raids).

[erethizon]

I can't bring myself to run DA anymore...

So did this change help variety, are you guys seeing a lot more quests in LFMs?

It is too soon to tell. We have to wait to see if people get out of the habit or running dailies (plus dailies continued to be productive for the first week after they reset everyone' ransack as there was no reason to stop running them yet).

They also released the hardcore server at the same time which took a huge number of players off the regular servers. When the hardcore server closes down in 3 months we will get a chance to see what the change to optional experience really did.

[LucidLTS]

... they may as well just get rid of tokens and use the comms we get for epic quests instead. We already get an epic currency in every quest so they could just have us use comms for TRing ...
It's not inherently unsolvable, but this could go horribly wrong - comms drop at a pathetic rate on the lower level quests at lower difficulties many first life characters have to run, setting the cost to TR too high could really screw over those people.

They tried something like that back in U20 and met with such push back that they had to admit it was a bad decision, they'd be starting out with the hornets already riled up if they tried to push that through again.

But yeah, we have too many currencies in this game, and most take up slots instead of being tracked by the game, having every quest drop universal rewards and redeem them how you want would be a huge improvement over what we have. Assuming they could find a fair award and redeem rates, of course, which I have little confidence in these days.

[erethizon]

It's not inherently unsolvable, but this could go horribly wrong - comms drop at a pathetic rate on the lower level quests at lower difficulties many first life characters have to run, setting the cost to TR too high could really screw over those people.

They tried something like that back in U20 and met with such push back that they had to admit it was a bad decision, they'd be starting out with the hornets already riled up if they tried to push that through again.

But yeah, we have too many currencies in this game, and most take up slots instead of being tracked by the game, having every quest drop universal rewards and redeem them how you want would be a huge improvement over what we have. Assuming they could find a fair award and redeem rates, of course, which I have little confidence in these days.

Yet another way to give people more reason to run a variety of quests would be to give a very large bonus to this new currency the first time each life you run a quest. This would prevent people from farming Korthos for the currency but would still allow people to build up a large amount of it during heroic levels. Then you could easily have everything you need the moment you get to 20.

[LucidLTS]

Yet another way to give people more reason to run a variety of quests would be to give a very large bonus to this new currency the first time each life you run a quest. This would prevent people from farming Korthos for the currency but would still allow people to build up a large amount of it during heroic levels. Then you could easily have everything you need the moment you get to 20.
I like that idea but suggest a slight twist - let the bonus reset after some crazy long period like 6 weeks - it's useless for farming, most power games have been through a life or two at that point, but a casual player gets a "welcome back" gift. I play a lot of different games, and while I know it's a trick, I still love when they give me a welcome back bonus.

Powering through lives isn't the only way to play this game and making it the only way to reset lockouts is needlessly restrictive. Of course you don't want power gamers to abuse a system intended to help slower players along, but a time gated lockout is enough to cover that. Systems need to work for both fast and slow players.

[Pyed-Pyper]

I would typically do DA (not so much now that the experience changes are in, since it's basically wasting experience potions now) once a day to get some tokens while in epic. The difference is that now I'd be wasting about 20 minutes of potion time by the time I did it more than, say, 5 times in a life with the new optional ransack. DA doesn't pay good experience, and now it pays absolute garbage. So, I'll probably go back to just running random quests for tokens (which would be fine if newer quests actually dropped tokens, but even WPM quests in the Twelve don't, because SSG hates us being able to TR for free I guess).

So, yeah, I'm a bit bitter about the fact that Tokens of the Twelve are locked to old content and now there's a limit on how many times we can run for experience *and* tokens. The whole, "Tokens don't drop in the FR because of lore reasons" thing only works if tokens drop consistently elsewhere, right now it's "Tokens only drop in old content because we hate F2P and want people to have to whale in order to not just grind forever."

I don't want to make it sound like I hate SSG. I love the new content, I've been really liking most of the recent changes, but Tokens of the Twelve need to either be retired and just shifted into comms/heart seeds or actually reliably dropped across a reasonable selection of quests so we don't have to run the same content past optional ransack in order to TR expediently. There are 31 quests in DDO which drop tokens, and 6 of those (numbers might be off on both counts, I'm not entirely sure about numbers because my brain is still warming up) are raids or preraids (7 if you count ADQ) that require flagging. Now, on elite, you'll get the tokens you need with perhaps some room for wiggle if you get bad RNG for mob drops and end chest rewards. However, on lower difficulties, which reward fewer tokens, the only really great way to get tokens is Devil Assault. Now, if you're a freebie, you don't have access to DA, epic destinies, and most of those quests. Even if you've built up a decent selection of content and you have epic destinies, if you don't have a good build you may struggle in EE/ER. Limiting the quests means that you, by design, have to grind the same quests.

So, basically, with the new experience changes to optional objectives having a permanent ransack down to 0%, unless you have a raid group that can snag tokens from the raids, you're probably going to have to farm some. If you're good and on a good build, then you can pretty easily get that before losing optional ransacks, you can do elites and get the tokens, but heaven help you if you're on a bad build, a returning player without all the sweet loot, or don't have/want to run the quests that drop tokens because they're an arbitrary selection. For crying out loud, not a single quest since Update 13 (!!!) drops tokens, even ones which take place in Stormreach and have no ostensible reason not to drop tokens.

I try not to be angry with DDO or the devs unless it's well deserved. I love playing DDO and don't mind farming from time to time, especially if I can get experience and farm loot simultaneously, but with the new content that's been added since the Token system was last touched, the token system has gotten even more prohibitive for casual/on-again-off-again/limited time per day players. It's been obsolete since, well, years ago, and it hasn't been touched or improved. Even just tweaking the number of tokens required for a heart down from 20 to 10 would make it much less odious, and let people feel like they can run more diverse content without having to worry about getting tokens to TR after doing an Epic Life (for example). I believe the system is garbage right now because instead of running fun content like WPM or RL or Sharn for epic, I run the same ten quests to get tokens and fragments or open up the wallet and just pay for it, which is not really endearing me to DDO.

TL;DR: Tokens need to be scrapped, drop more universally, or have a lower token to heart conversion rate to remain sustainable with contemporary DDO. As is, it's just a BS-y paywall that frustrates players.

I think the simplest solution would be to simply add heroic and racial hearts to the comms trade-in list.

[yfernbottom]

I think the simplest solution would be to simply add heroic and racial hearts to the comms trade-in list.

That and or have tokens and fragments drop from every epic quest instead of only the MotU era Ebberon ones. Of course if they did any of that they probably couldn't charge almost $20 worth of coins for them in the store . . .

Going off on a bit of a tangent here, but the devs need to decide if reincarnation is a core gameplay loop in DDO or not. If it is, and it certainly appears to be, then no-one should ever be forced to do research on an out of game wiki and then spend a week grinding either House C challenges or quests from a really specific list to get a heart. If we needed some item to advance into epic levels that was so rare that the devs could hope to sell it in the store for $16, players would be screaming bloody murder. How is this different?

[CSQ]

I think the simplest solution would be to simply add heroic and racial hearts to the comms trade-in list.

And the heart seed trade list, of course

I think we can all agree that running quests for heart seeds at cap is much less tedious than farming the short list of token quests for tokens. This is in line with the dev's logic for the new experience changes (being that players shouldn't just run the same five quests endlessly) and doesn't require any new systems. Leave the current token system in place for at least a couple updates so people have time to use up their saved tokens and then just let the functional (relatively) existing epic system take over.

[Aelonwy]

And the heart seed trade list, of course

I think we can all agree that running quests for heart seeds at cap is much less tedious than farming the short list of token quests for tokens. This is in line with the dev's logic for the new experience changes (being that players shouldn't just run the same five quests endlessly) and doesn't require any new systems. Leave the current token system in place for at least a couple updates so people have time to use up their saved tokens and then just let the functional (relatively) existing epic system take over.

This solution wouldn't be a problem for me however there is a segment of the population that doesn't like epics and only sets foot in them for Tokens to reincarnate. They don't go to cap. This solution would alienate them by forcing them to cap at least one character that would have to run cap quests for heart seeds, because to quote you "I think we can all agree" that running for comms at low epics to get enough for a heart is beyond tedious. Just another perspective.

[Xgya]

This solution wouldn't be a problem for me however there is a segment of the population that doesn't like epics and only sets foot in them for Tokens to reincarnate. They don't go to cap. This solution would alienate them by forcing them to cap at least one character that would have to run cap quests for heart seeds, because to quote you "I think we can all agree" that running for comms at low epics to get enough for a heart is beyond tedious. Just another perspective.

QFT.

I often can't be bothered to get to cap, especially while farming racials.

[tinyelvis]

I am not sure I would call collecting 20 tokens a grind in this game. However, it is an annoyance if you are playing with friends and you cap if they plan on immediately TR'n. Your only option is to buy a heart or not play with them. Choosing the later option can often lead to playing another game.

My 2 cents here is that VIP already pay to play the game. Why do they have to pay again? Hearts should be free at least to VIP's.

[LucidLTS]

This solution wouldn't be a problem for me however there is a segment of the population that doesn't like epics and only sets foot in them for Tokens to reincarnate. They don't go to cap. This solution would alienate them by forcing them to cap at least one character that would have to run cap quests for heart seeds, because to quote you "I think we can all agree" that running for comms at low epics to get enough for a heart is beyond tedious. Just another perspective.
+1, Excellent point

HTR for a first life character running normal at low epics should not take significantly longer than for the same character running normal at cap where heartseeds drop one per completion per day regardless of difficulty. Both approaches are valid, both should take the same effort.

Those who forget U20 are doomed to repeat it.